So a few months back the owner of this blog asked me to make a Windows app for him that would auto-setup Google DNS with just a click of a button, and I did, and after trying it out on my machine, I noticed a bit of a speed difference, and I loved it, however, I have since moved back to Linux, and I have re-discovered how to set up Google DNS in Linux (namely *buntu). So I thought that I would share.

First of all, lets give a simple explanation for what DNS is for those that have no idea.

From Google’s own site (and I love this explanation)

The DNS protocol is an important part of the web’s infrastructure, serving as the Internet’s phone book: every time you visit a website, your computer performs a DNS lookup. Complex pages often require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading, so your computer may be performing hundreds of lookups a day.

Ok, so yeah, there we go, it is where your internet goes to get the IP numbers that actually run the internet, that is associated with website names, say google.com, or even therightguy.info.

So as how I have reviewed Elementary OS before, I had some idea as of what I was heading in to. However, to do the tl;dr for those that have a ten second attention span, here is the end result: It is nice, but still buggy. Use if you want the latest, however, I would advise against it. I found the desktop slow, and a but unresponsive at times. Getting the LightDM to work correctly was horrible, every other login was just a black screen, I had to manually restart lightdm from virtual terminal way to many times.

However, if you DO want to try the packages, and hopefully get a better experience that what I did, keep reading below.

So I am a huge fan of Linux, and Windows as well, And quite often I will download whatever the newest release of whatever Linux Distro iso, burn it, reboot, and play with the Live session of that Linux for a while. If I like it enough I give it some hard drive space to install it on to. However, recently I was looking for an older Linux Distro to put on a friend’s PC and I discovered that, when I collected all of the Burned Discs, some CD, most DVD as of recent, and I organised them and put them into DVD spindles that I had laying about, well, I had Three Spindles, and each spindle holds One Hundred DVDs.. So my collection was up to AT LEAST Three Hundred burned discs.

I say “AT LEAST” because to be honest, I still about 5 more discs in my backpack, some in my “Emergency Kit” for recovering HDD info, and a dresser drawer that I have not gone through yet.

YES. That is a LOT of burned Discs, and honestly, they need to be recycled. But that got me thinking “There must be a better way to test out a Linux LiveCD/DVD session on Real Hardware that does not involve burning a disc.” Enter USB Booting. And this is what I discovered.